It's hard to see balance implications as a legitimate reason not to do something when non-trivial balance changes are attached to each patch and two expansions are on the way. Blizzard doesn't see SC2's balance state as calcified, and if they decided that an overhaul to unit pathing would improve the game, they'd package it in with HOTS and spend a long open beta rebalancing each and every unit as needed.
The thing is that SC2's movement algorithms were designed with ease of use in mind, not pro level play or the spectator experience. And at making a Starcraft that's less frustrating to play than the original, Blizzard was successful. Perhaps there will be tweaks in the right direction, but a complete reversion back to the old way is doubtful just because accessibility will always be a primary design goal for Blizzard.
(As an aside, I've always wondered if the current AI was first made for zerglings specifically and then applied to everything. Zergling swarms move rather beautifully in Starcraft 2 given their speed and numbers, like schools of fish. And from both a design and flavor standpoint it makes sense for groups of zerglings to behave like one unit. But applied to entire armies with diverse compositions it's a bit of a mess visually and micro often feels like trying to dig a hole in loose sand.)
On May 19 2011 07:14 Rococo wrote: The thing is that SC2's movement algorithms were designed with ease of use in mind, not pro level play or the spectator experience. And at making a Starcraft that's less frustrating to play than the original, Blizzard was successful. Perhaps there will be tweaks in the right direction, but a complete reversion back to the old way is doubtful just because accessibility will always be a primary design goal for Blizzard.
We aren't going back to the old, Brood War, way. Units will still be easy to control and not run around in random directions, they'll just spread out more naturally because they'll see each other. Currently, units just run one another over. Quite rude if you ask me.
And seriously, this baneling vs marine argument is getting tiresome. Could people PLEASE watch some marines vs lurkers, scourge vs wraith splitting, reaver baiting and such things? Dynamic movement wouldn't destroy that 'epic' marine dodging - the damn banelings wouldn't go in a single file anymore, making dodging potentially harder if anything.
[/quote] What's getting tiresome are the comparison's to BW. Did BW have stronger marines? Did BW have reactors to mass produce them faster? Was broodwar this fast-paced? BW analogies only work sometimes and not here.
I really would love to see this get a lot more attention. This fix would potentially be the most dramatic change for the better we could possibly expect to see.
You're making the comparison to BW, but in BW units clumped together as well.
Micro in that game as well as not having a whole 200/200 army together at all times is what made the units not stay in such a ball. Marine split to avoid lurker splash. Zealot spreading to breach a tank line to avoid splash. Vultures moved to defend several parts of a siege line instead of all being pushed to one direction.
This happened in BW as well, the players knew a ball formation would hurt them, so they used micro to fix that.
The spread-it-out is mainly a side effect of what the OP is talking about though. Atm in SC2 units are "smart": control groups will move together, units get out of each other's way (and stay out of the way of workers building things, at least sometimes). BW as far as I can tell unit AI was much more individualized (and therefore "dumb").
The ideal solution, in my opinion, would be to have some kind of toggle where a control group could have either an (organized) "formation" (cf AoEII) or be every unit for itself (BW). The current SC2 "blob-'formation'-as-default" is close to the worst possible, aesthetically speaking. I suppose my hypothetical toggle could have a 3rd "blob" setting since that's important for some compositions (at least at the moment), but I don't think any significant portion of the serious community (I have no idea about the "average gamer") actually likes it.
Whether it's worth it/possible to/actually going to happen that change is made is a different question, of course.
And seriously, this baneling vs marine argument is getting tiresome. Could people PLEASE watch some marines vs lurkers, scourge vs wraith splitting, reaver baiting and such things? Dynamic movement wouldn't destroy that 'epic' marine dodging - the damn banelings wouldn't go in a single file anymore, making dodging potentially harder if anything.
What's getting tiresome are the comparison's to BW. Did BW have stronger marines? Did BW have reactors to mass produce them faster? Was broodwar this fast-paced? BW analogies only work sometimes and not here.
increase baneling splash radius if it becomes a problem
dang that was hard to fix
also, guess one of the biggest reasons why marines are stronger and have higher DPS in SC2? that's right, the whole point behind this thread.
And seriously, this baneling vs marine argument is getting tiresome. Could people PLEASE watch some marines vs lurkers, scourge vs wraith splitting, reaver baiting and such things? Dynamic movement wouldn't destroy that 'epic' marine dodging - the damn banelings wouldn't go in a single file anymore, making dodging potentially harder if anything.What's getting tiresome are the comparison's to BW. Did BW have stronger marines? Did BW have reactors to mass produce them faster? Was broodwar this fast-paced? BW analogies only work sometimes and not here.
neither one is really "stronger" , one has higher attacks per second while the other has more hp and they kill each other at the same rate.
You wouldn't want to clump vs lurkers, while you would vs zerglings, but the lurker would always strike one target while a baneling may or may not even hit one. Without the autoclumping feature, it would make the marines easier to kill early in the game and the zerglings would last a tiny bit longer. Splash damage units don't kill masses of banelings/zerglings as well as it would though in the later stages into the game.
This change would make the battles longer and more create more games with more multi pronged attacks instead of just rolling over the opponent immediately in some situations. More games with micro all over the map would be really cool...
Making splash radius increases, etc. is equivalent to balancing the game around larger maps compared to the previous smaller maps. Its a necessary step to make the game good.
On May 18 2011 17:54 FliedLice wrote: Sooo.. Wouldn't De-clumping the units mannualy be one of those awesome testaments of a players skill everybody cheered about in Broodwar and cried about when they were missing in SC2?
These are pretty much my thoughts regarding this matter. Look at different ways of controlling your army to spread it out more if desired. Using more control groups would be helpful. There is so much more that could be done micro-wise at the moment. Don't be trapped in the past.
The ideal situation, to me, would be to have units spread a little more than they do now (though less than this) but for control groups to remember their formations as they move.
That way you could pre-arrange a spread or ball depending on the situation, and then move command and have your units retain that. Both would take apm to set up and adjust, but would not require 1000% babysitting during every move command. "Digging a hole in the sand" is a really apt analogy for how it is right now.
The one thing we can't afford to do is make it impossible to clump units when the player wants it. This mod does that, and so you really need a more sophisticated solution.
EDIT:
On May 19 2011 12:11 Toastmold wrote: These are pretty much my thoughts regarding this matter. Look at different ways of controlling your army to spread it out more if desired. Using more control groups would be helpful. There is so much more that could be done micro-wise at the moment. Don't be trapped in the past.
There's definitely more we can do, but the tools we have in this game are just not as effective for this kind of thing as the tools in brood war. In BW you had to fight the spread most of the time, whereas here we have to fight the ball, and the SC2 pathing is just so absurdly good at creating balls no matter what we do that fighting it is almost futile, or takes so much attention it's detrimental to the rest of your game.
On May 19 2011 11:38 mikeymoo wrote: I would consider buying sc2 if this change was implemented.
I would as well. Unfortunately it looks like Blizz wants the game to be kept this way because they want it to be centered around large clusters of units and for the other reasons probably mentioned already. :[
If everyone makes enough noise about this I can very easily see this being implemented. Get big names on board, get it discussed in state of the game/inside the game and I bet it can happen quite easily. Its far from an impossible change and HotS isn't that far off.
EPT
